Which Ballet Should I See?

Just moved to Houston recently and would love some recommendations on which ballet to see from them. This will be my 1st time seeing a ballet live! I was thinking either Swan Lake in June or A Midsummer's Night Dream in September. Also, how would you rate this company's dancing? Are they up there with SFB, ABT, and NYCB?

I would vote for both as well, and as many other things as you can see in between -- Houston is an interesting dance town.

DanceSourceHouston - general information on community, with ongoing calendar. It looks like Ailey and Joffrey are both in town next month (and Joffrey is doing Jerome Robbins' Interplay, which is hard to find anywhere) And you've got a couple movie theaters that show the Fathom dance film broadcasts.

Houston Ballet's Modern Masters program in May also looks really strong: if you've never seen Balanchine's Four Temperaments you need to see it asap. William Forsythe's in the middle, somewhat elevated isn't everyone's favorite, but on a program next to the Balanchine you'd really see one pathway in the development of neo-classical ballet. And the pair of Kylians (Petit Mort and Sechs Tanze) are very accessible.

The company runs a series of Dance Talks as well, coordinated with the work they've got on their season -- they're free (always a plus) and a chance to get better acquainted with the artists and the style of the company.

Houston isn't a neoclassical company like NYCB. NYCB probably takes more of its dancers from SAB, at least now that they're not raiding RDB, than Houston does its school, but most of the Houston Ballet dancers, even the Principals and various levels of Soloists are mainly from the US or are US-trained, mostly finished at minimum at the Ben Stevenson Academy. SFB has a lot of SFB School-trained dancers in the company, but at the Principal and Soloist ranks, the majority of the dancers are from Europe, Brazil, and Cuba, like at ABT, counting Russia as Europe.

When I saw them about five years ago, I noticed that they have a lot of very tall men in the corps. I don't know where they grow them. I fell in love with Melanie Mennite's dancing; happily, Olivier Wevers brought her to Seattle to dance with Whim W'him in a work by Isabelle Ochoa.

It's very much a home-grown and developed company. Between Stevenson and Stanton Welch, it's had an Artistic Director/choreographer at its head for a long time.

There are some gorgeous dancers in the Company. Sixteen dancers, mostly Principals and varieties of Soloist, were seen in a collaboration with Lang Lang in Paris last November to music by Chopin and choreography by Welch. The broadcast on medici.tv was geo-blocked, but here is a link to a short description and list of dancers:

(If you have VPN software that assigns an IP address from France, you should be able to watch it on demand.)

We hope you'll report on whatever you see Plisskin! It's a major company that many of us at BA! never or rarely see. You're also in a fantastic city for opera, one of the best in North America. (Houston Grand Opera is performing "A Little Night Music" in March, three performances of a world premiere by Ricky Ian Gordon, called "A Coffin in Egypt," a one-woman show written especially for Frederica von Stade, also in March, "Das Rheingold" in April, and "Carmen" in May.)

Any chance you could see both? It seems to me the first would be good preparation for the second. If I had the opportunity, I wouldn't pass on the Modern Masters program either.

I would vote for both as well, and as many other things as you can see in between -- Houston is an interesting dance town.

DanceSourceHouston - general information on community, with ongoing calendar. It looks like Ailey and Joffrey are both in town next month (and Joffrey is doing Jerome Robbins' Interplay, which is hard to find anywhere) And you've got a couple movie theaters that show the Fathom dance film broadcasts.

Houston Ballet's Modern Masters program in May also looks really strong: if you've never seen Balanchine's Four Temperaments you need to see it asap. William Forsythe's in the middle, somewhat elevated isn't everyone's favorite, but on a program next to the Balanchine you'd really see one pathway in the development of neo-classical ballet. And the pair of Kylians (Petit Mort and Sechs Tanze) are very accessible.

The company runs a series of Dance Talks as well, coordinated with the work they've got on their season -- they're free (always a plus) and a chance to get better acquainted with the artists and the style of the company.

Thank you guys! I actually might see both. And thank you so much sandik for the links. I had absolutely NO idea other companies traveled to Houston or about the Fathom dance broadcasts. Which this is a great thing that I found out now because their showing The Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty next month!

Houston isn't a neoclassical company like NYCB. NYCB probably takes more of its dancers from SAB, at least now that they're not raiding RDB, than Houston does its school, but most of the Houston Ballet dancers, even the Principals and various levels of Soloists are mainly from the US or are US-trained, mostly finished at minimum at the Ben Stevenson Academy. SFB has a lot of SFB School-trained dancers in the company, but at the Principal and Soloist ranks, the majority of the dancers are from Europe, Brazil, and Cuba, like at ABT, counting Russia as Europe.

When I saw them about five years ago, I noticed that they have a lot of very tall men in the corps. I don't know where they grow them. I fell in love with Melanie Mennite's dancing; happily, Olivier Wevers brought her to Seattle to dance with Whim W'him in a work by Isabelle Ochoa.

It's very much a home-grown and developed company. Between Stevenson and Stanton Welch, it's had an Artistic Director/choreographer at its head for a long time.

There are some gorgeous dancers in the Company. Sixteen dancers, mostly Principals and varieties of Soloist, were seen in a collaboration with Lang Lang in Paris last November to music by Chopin and choreography by Welch. The broadcast on medici.tv was geo-blocked, but here is a link to a short description and list of dancers:

(If you have VPN software that assigns an IP address from France, you should be able to watch it on demand.)

We hope you'll report on whatever you see Plisskin! It's a major company that many of us at BA! never or rarely see. You're also in a fantastic city for opera, one of the best in North America. (Houston Grand Opera is performing "A Little Night Music" in March, three performances of a world premiere by Ricky Ian Gordon, called "A Coffin in Egypt," a one-woman show written especially for Frederica von Stade, also in March, "Das Rheingold" in April, and "Carmen" in May.)

I've only seen snippets of the company on Youtube so the information is much appreciated. I will definatly report back on the performances I've seen of them. I have noticed that they aren't very much talked about here or elsewhere on the net. I am very excited because the last city I lived in had no ballet, orchestra's, or anything. I'm not very educated in opera. I've only been to two? performances years ago in elementary/ junior high, but I do plan on seeing an opera here. Not sure if I'll like it but I thought I'd give it a go (and I'll definatly do some reading up on it beforehand).